@Allamanda Either way, it's wasted energy. There's nothing there.

Not sure about: "Many of our Founding Fathers were Deists." but for else I do agree.

@InSaNe_97 I made that statement exactly as you printed it because some Americans think our Founding Fathers were religious in the way that many Americans claim today. It is simply not true and often used to try and bolster ideas against separation of church and state.

I don't know that, will be stupid if I just believe, I'll for sure have it in mind so once I might be able to determine it by Myself. Thank you for patience, I am sure it's not pleasant writing too much for random people.

That's exactly how I would answer but with bigger text. I'm loving it.

God hiding is not what Deists believe. The belief follows traditional theist metaphysics, in which God, as creator, is separate from the universe, his Creation. Since the universe sets the boundaries of what we can perceive (we cannot examine anything outside the universe), the Deist God can only be known through what we can examine of its works and since the Deist God does not tinker with its creation, that means examining the mechanics of the natural world. For the time period it was popular during, Deism made a lot of sense: not only was NOT believing in God socially (and legally) dangerous, but advances in science were revealing much about the elegance of how natural processes work. Thus believing in a master creator who defined the rules and set the work in motion without intervening was very attractive in intellectual circles.

@Liam Yes I am familiar with the history of Deism, but I think that the poster was more interested in the popular modern meaning. Please note the phrase, 'from a practical point of view'. A god who can be understood only through the mechanics/practicallities of the universe leaves nothing for us to study except the mechanics of the universe, and if there is no god then the only thing we have to study are the mechanics of the universe, therefore they are equal. The slight nuance that you may be able to read some intent in the mechanics of the universe, such as, 'god was very fond of beetles,' is not really relevant.

@Fernapple, hiding implies intent, though. That was my point. The Absent Watchmaker is an attractive idea, if you're accustomed to belief in a diety but want something more rational. It's common to infer something about the artist from their work, and the universe is a pretty slick piece. If you are already predisposed to the idea of a creator, then learning about them through their work is a natural place to start. It's the only evidence left of them, and the quality of that work testifies to their nature, to a degree. A Deist physicist can look at the equations describing gravity, and the inverse square law, and the ideal gas law, and wonder at the artistry that allows such elegance to exist as part of the fundamental ordering of existence.

@Liam True and thank you for such a thoughtful reply. My point is simply however that as you say. "A Deist physicist can look at the equations describing gravity," But the solutions for him would come out the same for the deist, as the solutions to those equations found by an atheist physicist, so no change. Whereas a theist physicist may well alter the results to fit a theological view, or even dismiss the idea of gravity altogether.

Spinoza's god isn't really deism, but the idea that all the physical laws of the universe add up to god (that the universe itself is god, and nothing more). Deism would be that god created the world/universe, and that was all. No more intervention, no caring what you do or why.

@greyeyed123 thanks for the clarification yeah I think they’re really similar and amount to many of the same conclusions, but good to be reminded of the particulars.

Edited that phrase to spinoza’s god or a deist approach.

@Allamanda who's he?

@Allamanda I mean "provable" in the sense it can't be explained away. Ever hear of Edgar Cayce? Over 20,000 recorded case histories of "readings" he did for people while in a deep sleep-like trance. Some amazing, detailed stuff including many things he couldn't possibly have knowledge of. If you haven't read about it, do so before you dismiss it as fradulent or explainable. That's "paranormal," right?
There other things maybe quite as spectacular but how many examples do you need to concede the point?

@Storm1752 Edward Cayce...ohferpetessake

@AnneWimsey EDGAR Cayce, and you have no idea who I'm talking about, do you? Or your knowledge of him and other psychics is so superficial it borders on non-existent. Lots of fakes, but some are quite convincing. But you laugh.
I was asked for "proof." I consider him and other real psychics a form of proof. At the very least it gives you a reason to think twice. But you're not interested. Okay. Fine. Apparently you and other true believers in belief in cynical, baseless close-mindedness a "proof" of intelligence. I consider it boringly willful ignorance.

@Storm1752 My brother lives in Norfolk VA, I have toured the Center, plus knew about him from decades ago. Another "seance" type charlatan, like so many others, just a man instead of a woman so he was given more cred. "No way of knowing" crapola.......

@AnneWimsey Well I totally disagree. There's no way what came out in his "readings" was made up as he went along.
A lot of it may be nonsense, but there was a source from which it came outside of himself. That source may have been fallible, imperfect, in some particulars "full of it," but he wasn"t a charlatan, and the very fact those readings exist cannot be explained away so easily.
It may point to a "collective unconsciousness" which may not be "god-like" infallible, but nevertheless THERE. I know you don't believe that, but I do.

@Storm1752 I used to read Tarot cards...beloved in what I was doing, too. Quite successful actually. Then I noticed whatever reading I gave, to whomever, they claimed it "fit".

@AnneWimsey And I did I Ching quite successfully (?), but that's hardly the same thing.
If you ever studied Cayce for a few days you'd realize the was the "real thing" and not like, say, Joseph Smith and his angel Moroni, or some lady reading cards or tea leaves, or me reading the I Ching.
And it has ZERO to do with him being a man.

@Storm1752 my point is, believers gonna believe. And I do not think you can discount him being taken more seriously than the average tent-prophesy gypsy...it was/is because he was a Male. Joseph Smith was even more successful than Cayce, why do you use him as an example?

@AnneWimsey Because Joseph Smith was an obvious phoney, from the get-go all the way through to the end, of course, like L. Ron Hubbard. How someone can start a new religion on such flimsy grounds and actually succeed in reeling people in is beyond me.
It reminds me very much of the Flavian emperors making up Christianity, but at least they had a captive audience, total control of the "media," and were clever enough to splice it onto an existing religion AND older mystery religions. But it is still fascinating how they could just abandon their own "gods" for new ones so cynically. Think they believed in ANYTHING other than their own hold on power? I certainly don't.
Anyway, I'm not naively saying him being male had NOTHING to do with it. It probably did. But it also had to do with his amazing readings, and I challenge you to point out anything remotely like them, AFTER YOU READ A FEW. Maybe you have. Okay. MY point was, there is much to ponder in his utterances, as well as from other sources, and I for one am not about to close my mind to the possibilities.
I'm not about to embrace a belief system, because I doubt any human has or ever will "get it right" 100%, but I do believe there may glimpses here and there of something MORE than we will ever know.
That's all I'm saying. I'm NOT saying there IS anything more, and nihilism may be the correct point of view. I'm just not there. Doubt I ever will be.

@Storm1752 phoney or not, hugely successful by any measure. Oh, and BTW, did Cayce ever get The Amazing Randy's million dollars? No? Why not?

@AnneWimsey Never heard of it. What was the deal?

To prove something scientifically, it has to be repeatable and falsifiable. This means that a completely separate group of people would need to be able to follow whatever method is prescribed and achieve the same results. Falsifiable means it has to be able to disproven. A lot of pseudoscience relies on anecdotal evidence and responds to counter evidence by claiming they did something wrong or something similar. I cam make a claim that mixing salt and water produces electricity, but to be considered actual science I would have to provide a method by which others could independently recreate my results, and it would have to be able to be proven false if my claimed method doesn't produce the results I say it will. If I respond to another failing to reproduce my results with claims that they failed to do it right, even with documented evidence that they followed my method, it isn't science. It's pseudoscience.

Thinking about it doesn’t equate to buying into it though surely? I might be wrong but I don’t think she was asking about whether it’s true or not. She seems like the kinda person that gets that already. I know, some atheists have no interest in comparative religious studies or scarcely philosophy of any kind. But a lot of folks who were unfortunately brainwashed early and later de converted by thinking through this stuff like I did find it useful to discuss all sorts of religious frameworks, or sometimes just for the intellectual curiosity of anthropology and sociology, imagining why some believe what they did and how it influenced our history. ‍ different strokes.

Agree, (I'm) glad someone has told it <3.